NPR On-Air Personality Job Interview Questions

NPR headquartersWhere the magic happens.  I hear they have chamomile tea

  • Do you have a voice that is soft and spreadable like butter from grass-fed cows?
  • Are you able to keep a straight face when reporting on the President, the President’s tweets, the people who work for the President, the President’s choice of hair or skin color, or the fact that the President may pout, punch other world leaders, or whine?
  • Do you consider all things?
  • Do you ever use the words “scrupulous” or “colloquial” or basically any words that normal people with an 8th grade vocabulary have never heard of?
  • Do people naturally smile and have a trance-like appearance when you open your mouth and speak, especially when you are discussing a war-torn country in a far-off location or economic woes in Detroit?
  • Are you totally comfortable talking about stories of seeming insignificance, like the third-generation carver of burled-wood tables in Virginia?
  • Can you pretend everyone else is lovely when we all know they are not?
  • Do you have a name that is unique and special like Garrison, Dina, Ira, or Neal, or a last name that’s gross?
  • Are you okay with asking people for money for months on end even though it’s just a radio station they can turn off at will?
  • Do you feel that a mug is ever an appropriate incentive? What about a t-shirt with an elitist quote?
  • Do you support a self-supporting, insular mindset where most people drink tea rather than the country’s more common and pedestrian coffee?
  • Speaking of tea, do you drink organic fair-trade tea from India? If not, what’s wrong with you?
  • Have you ever lived on a prairie, and if so, did you have a home filled with suitable companions?
  • Are you inspired and uplifted by stories about rare ants found deep in the woods of a forest in a country whose name nobody can pronounce but you?
  • Speaking of that, can you pronounce all words in the history of the world and in various languages with the correct accent?
  • Are you okay with umlauts?
  • If we have any further questions, we’ll be sure to ask you quickly and efficiently via telephone before you hypnotize us with your melodic and uplifting voice. Also, we kinda want to punch you in the throat.  Nobody really cares about ants that much.

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